Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck

by David M. Raup and david-m-raup

Book Overview

In the geological record, there are five major mass extinctions the "Big Five." The most famous happened at the end of the Cretaceous Period, when the dinosaurs and two-thirds of all marine animal species were wiped out, opening the door for the age of mammals and the rise of Homo Sapiens. Using this example as a springboard, David M. Raup leaps into an egaging discussion of the theories, assumptions, and difficulties associated with the science...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393309274
• ISBN13: 9780393309270
• Release Date: November 1992
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating

Raup's book is fascinating. It's a scientific explanation of how mass extinction affects speciation, etc. Very interesting for those interested in evolutionary biology and the selection process. Extinction provides another twist that must be considered. Raup is not only a paleontologist, but a statistician. He does a wonderful job of explaining analysis techniques that are in fact quite complex.

reviewed by Victor Niederhoffer (Daily [...])

This book by David M. Raup, a biologist at the University of Chicago, of the Stephen Jay Gould genre, identifies everything about extinction that we thought was true but is not. The author's main thesis is that extinction is a mostly random event; due to catastrophes and bad luck, and not related to the process of evolution that is part and parcel of the Darwinian idea. The author believes that the most likely explanation for the major extinctions that we have had is not competition, nature, or physical causes, but meteorites of colossal energy that fell on the earth regularly some 18 million years ago and still threaten us today. In the process of debunking everything that we have been taught about extinction the author comes to six conclusions that are of great explanatory value for all species, all companies, and all investment styles: Species are temporary. Almost all species die out, and almost all lifetimes are very small relative to the age of the earth. Species with small populations are easy to kill. This is a consequence of gambler's ruin, that if you let random events run for a long enough time you are bound to hit the zero point, unless the probability of success is inordinately high. This is something that all traders with fixed systems, and all companies with specialized technological innovations and unique niches should contemplate. Widely spread species are harder to kill. Geographic diversity, and niche diversity are very important in precluding narrow events from causing a species' extinction. It is much easier to kill a species if you get a substantial number with the first strike. The importance of not losing too much in one fell swoop is paramount in any field. Extinction is most often caused by new stresses that the organism is not accustomed to. Long-lived species have usually developed mechanisms to cope with everything that has occurred to them in the past, so the thing they must fear the most is the meteor ... or the spacemen! Mass extinctions require stresses that cut across all biological boundaries. In the market this would be such a thing as a big war or a global rise in interest rates. There have been five major extinctions in the history of the earth. They are usually classified as Ordovician-Silurian, 440 million years before present, Late Devonian, 365 b.p., Permian-Triassic 250 b.p., End Triassic 200 b.p., and Cretaceous-Tertiary, 65 b.p., and a high percentage of species and genera were killed off in the years surrounding each of these markers. The author has developed some nice graphs to show what the likely number of species that died are, given the number of genera that were killed in each cataclysm. There is an interesting but naive chapter in the book on the relation of extinction to industries. Raup argues that most of the companies around today were not in existence 50 years ago, and the cause of their disappearance, merger or bankruptcy corresponds to the causes of species disappearance or phy

highly readable and informative book on extinction

David M. Raup does an extraordinary job in this fine work on the mysteries of extinction. Addressing not only the infamous K-T extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs, pterosaurs, prehistoric marine reptiles, ammonites, and many less well known organims of the Mesozoic, he addresses other significant extinction events in earth's history, ranging from the Cambrian period all the way up to extinctions in recent centuries, such as the heath hen in the eastern United States. Raup is able to draw many interesting theories and conclusions by analyzing extinction as an event and process seperate from and beyond the details of the individual organisms. Too many works, at least popular works, dwell overmuch on the extinction of the dinosaurs and related archosaur fauna (and to a lesser extent the mammalian and avian megafauna at the end of the Pleistocene)and fail to draw overall conclusions about what extinction is, how it comes about, and what roles it plays in the history of life on earth. Though the details of particular organims that become extinct are important, Raup seeks to draw broader and more widely applicable conclusions, and in this he succeeds brilliantly.Raup analyzes and addresses a variety of potential causes of extinction from biological (such as predation, epidemic disease, etc.) to physical (sea level rises and falls, volcanism, etc.) to fairly exotic (cosmic radiation, asteroid impact, etc.), as well of course interactions between various causes. He also discusses the importance of small population sizes playing a role in and of themselves in a species extinction, how small populations (using the heath hen as an example) are uniquely vulnerable to such factors as demographic stochasticity, extrinsic forces, social dysfunction, and so forth, all described in informative but very readable format. The debate over the role of small population size is particularly interesting in discussions of potential modern day extinctions, a probelm faced by modern day conservationists and environmentalists. Weaving in discussions of probability, statistics, geology, astronomy, climate, and the overall history of life on earth, Raup does an excellent job on the subject of extinction. Any amateur paleontologist or indeed biologist, as well as those involved in conservation efforts, would be well served by this book.

Extinction

This is a delightfully well written book on the phenomenon of extinction, from the background rates of species death to the massive die-offs of the KT and other major extinction events. The author approaches the subject from a statistical/probabilities standpoint, looking at extinction as a continuum which is characterised, as he notes, by "long periods of boredom interrupted occasionally by panic." He introduces the concept of Gambler's Ruin, which makes his thesis understandable even to the statistically challenged like myself. The sense of humor with which he injects his work makes a complex subject entirely enjoyable.

thoroughly enjoyable in-depth look at a neglected subject

This thought provoking book covers details not discussed in many books about past life and past extinctions. Looking at the big picture of extinction, he provides insight to the nature of evolution, our past and possible futures. Using a skillful combination of specific data on individual mass die-offs and statistical examination of the entire history of life on this planet, he brings many difficult (or unpleasant) theories of extinction into focus. He analyzes many theories, from older standard views to the downright wacky, but eventually makes a strong case for celestial impacts as cause of many mass extinctions.